Piper's Daycare Service
by Karen Hikari
Summary: Inwardly thanking Jason for having literally dragged her to that conclusion, she leaned forward and kissed Nico's forehead just before the boy too reached for her waist.


**Okay, so the other night I was trying to sleep but then I started thinking, and I was trying to come up with the plot for a Jasico fanfic and realized I had never written something that included Piper and Nico, and this idea suddenly popped out and I thought it was simply too cute to not write it down.**

 **Hope you like it!**

* * *

 ** _Piper's Daycare Service_**

* * *

"Jason!" Piper shrieked, in partly confused and in partly annoyed by her boyfriend's attitude. "Stop it already!" But the son of Jupiter ignored her as she continued to drag her towards Cabin 13.

"I'm just worried about him, alright?" Jason finally admitted, pointing to the black building. "He hasn't left his cabin for like two days now."

"If that's so" Piper started, somewhat touched by Jason's words, but noticing how it didn't explain why he was dragging _her_ to the place. "Why don't _you_ go and talk to him?"

"Because he won't let me in!" the boy complained like a kicked puppy.

Piper sighed. "And what do you think would make it any different for me?" she questioned. "He hardly knows me."

"You are a girl!" Jason replied matter-of-factly, as if that explained everything.

"Why don't you call Hazel then?" Piper asked. "She's his sister, you know?"

"I don't want to worry her" Jason explained. "She's busy at Camp Jupiter, and maybe I'm just overreacting a little."

At least he knows it, Piper thought to herself.

Finally, they reached the door, same that Jason proceeded to knock as if he was intending to beat it down. No wonder the son of Hades wouldn't let him in, Piper thought. Had it been her the owner of the cabin, she wouldn't have wanted Jason inside either.

"Nico di Angelo!" Jason screamed. "I know you're inside! Open this goddamn door unless you want me to bring it down!"

Inside, an animal-like groan answered Jason's words.

"Nico di Angelo!" Jason repeated, just before he summoned a lighting that flashed in the perfectly clear sky, roaring over the campers' surprised screams.

"The door is not even locked, you dumbass!" Nico finally answered, surrendering after groaning once more.

As the all mighty son of Jupiter opened the door at last, Piper was trying to hold back her giggles.

When they finally stepped inside, they were surprised by what greeted them. Piper hadn't even seen Hades' cabin from inside, and save a couple of times, Jason hadn't been there much either.

Around ten beds were placed to the sides of the cabin, with a black drawer next to each other, in the remote case Hades had any more children, although the only two of them that seemed to have been used recently were the one in which Nico laid and one with a purple eiderdown that Piper immediately identified as Hazel's.

She had little time to admire the cabin's architecture before she noticed the son of Hades. Certainly not one of the boy's best days, she noted with a bit of surprise.

Nico was sitting on the bed, his back leaned against the headboard, with an annoyed expression fixed upon his features, a black blanket pulled over his shoulders and several used tissues placed around his bed hazardously. His eyes were swollen and his nose was reddened.

"Happy now, Jason?" Nico said hoarsely, interrupting Piper's thoughts.

"Don't tell me–" Jason started.

"Are you sick?" Piper asked straightforwardly.

"I'm not sick" Nico complained as he continued to warp the blanket more tightly around his shoulders.

"I can't believe it" Piper said, as she approached the bed Nico was occupying and took a sit next to him.

"Gods, Nico!" Jason exclaimed. "You could have called us or something! Look at you!"

For all answer, Nico simply groaned again, closing her eyes and resting his head against the black wall for a moment in a tired gesture.

Piper grimaced slightly, as she continued to hear Jason's rambling. Judging by her very own experience with flues, it was very probable that Nico's head was already throbbing with all the nonsense rambling of the son of Jupiter. No wonder Nico had kept the door shut.

"We are only worried, Nico" she said gently, interrupting Jason once and for all. Finally, an idea enlightened her. "Here's a deal, okay?" she started. "You let me take care of you until you are healthy again and meanwhile I keep this idiot away from you, what do you think?"

Her words immediately caught Nico's attention, even if they achieved a pained sound from Jason.

"Hey!" the son of Jupiter yelped.

"Hey nothing, Sparky!" Piper answered, turning to him. "You brought me here and wanted me to handle the situation. If that's so, we do things my way!" she concluded the argument and then, facing Nico again. "So, what do you say?"

The son of Hades looked at her for a minute, and then to Jason, who gave him a puppy look and a thumbs up. He sighed.

"Fine" he agreed grumpily, earning another melodramatic shriek from Jason.

"You heard him, Sparky" Piper said, smiling at the son of Jupiter as she stood up and walked him to the door. "I'll see you soon."

"But–" Jason tried saying, just before the door was shut right in front of him.

Right then, Piper heard Nico sigh in relief, which concluded in her smiling more openly. Her eyes instantly softened.

"He's just worried, Nico" she assured kindly. "Although" she added "He can overact a little the whole mother-hen thing."

Nico raised an eyebrow at her, as if to ask 'Only a little?', but he said nothing.

"Nico" Piper said after a couple of silent minutes. "I was being serious, huh? I'll stay here until you're okay again, understood?"

The boy huffed softly in what Piper took as an 'I know'.

"So" the daughter of Aphrodite started, while she turned on her heels to open the black curtains of the room. "When was the last time you ate something?"

"I'm not hungry" Nico instantly answered, though his stomach growled saying otherwise. Piper raised an eyebrow, just before Nico mumbled something intelligible under his breath.

"Sorry?" Piper wondered aloud.

"Couple of days ago" Nico repeated, this time clearly.

"Nico!" Piper exclaimed, taken aback by his answer, but the boy simply shrugged it off. "I'll go get you something right now, don't move!" she declared, already heading for the door.

Just before she stepped outside, Nico called for her.

"Piper" he said hoarsely. "Before you leave, could you close the window?"

The girl simply stared back at him with a gaze that was both curious and intimidating.

"I could… catch an allergy?" Nico tried, earning a giggle from the daughter of Aphrodite.

"An allergy?" Piper deadpanned. "From what, the sun?" Nico nodded repeatedly, hoping he could convince her to just shut the light off from his little cavern again. Piper started laughing cherily, crashing all his hopes. "Now, you do have a sense of humor!" she said, turning to the door again. "But no, the window stays open unless you yourself want to stand up and close it again."

Nico simply groaned scornfully at her and then proceeded to sink into the covers while Piper left the cabin, still laughing.

When Piper returned, around ten minutes later, she was holding a tray with a bowl that contained vegetable soup and a jar filled up with lemonade, with its respective spoon and glass besides it.

Nico was still eyeing her hatefully because of the window incident, much like a child in a tantrum would have, pouting at her, which Piper found somehow endearing and comical. She smiled at him fondly.

"Now, now" she said. "Don't give me that look, I'm doing this for your own good" she assured, carefully placing the silver tray on top of the boy's legs.

"Lemmonade?" Nico finally asked, changing topic. "Piper, I _hate_ lemonade!"

His high pitched voice and childish acting only had Piper laughing hard again.

"Sweetie, you hate half the world" she said, as she finally spotted a black trash can and began gathering the used tissues and throwing them away. "Now eat that up unless you want me to spoon-feed you."

Her last words seemed to have done the trick, and soon enough Nico was obediently eating. At least the boy knew she was being serious on the matter, she thought as she smiled.

They stayed in silence for a while, until Nico finished the food and Piper picked up the used items, leaving the glass and the jar on the bureau placed next to Nico's bed.

"I'll go give this back" she said casually, giving a closer look to the furniture around the cabin. "Why haven't you called a son of Apollo or something?" she asked; Nico simply groaned again.

She knew the answer. When a camper got a flu or something as easy to be treated, his brothers and sisters looked after him, only going to the infirmary to get a painkiller or something like that. Nico had no-one to do such a thing given that Hazel was at the other side of the country and presumably he hadn't even called her.

The thought made her feel empty inside. She gulped slowly. And then, a way more happy thought made its way to her mind.

It was truth that Nico had no siblings or whatsoever at Camp Half-Blood, but he was far from alone. He did have friends, same that would gladly stay and keep an eye on him–like her.

She instantly recovered her smile. Maybe Jason had been just right at dragging her to the spot.

"I'll also pass to tell my cabin I'll be gone for today, so it may take me a while" she said, changing the subject as she leaned down to ruffle the boy's hair fondly.

Nico shrugged her hand off, but Piper could still see him smiling subtly.

"Won't that bring you trouble being the head counselor and all?" he asked, in a vague attempt to get rid of her, although, somewhere inside him he really was glad to have her there.

"Drew can handle it for a couple of hours" Piper reassured confidently before she turned to leave, still smiling.

She was not actually sure that the cabin would be fine with her gone, but there was something called priorities, and she was staying with Nico nevertheless. She'd been gone for weeks in the Ancient Lands, after all, and Cabin 10 was still standing.

When she stepped into the cabin again, almost forty minutes after she'd left, she was somehow touched to find Nico waiting for her, even if he would have denied such a thing.

Unfortunately, it was just then, under the shiny light that entered through the window that she finally notice how dusty and messy the cabin was.

"My gods!" she exclaimed dramatically. "When was the last time you cleaned this?"

Nico simply shifted his weigh from one side to the other in the bed.

"What about the harpies?" she pressured.

"Probably scared of coming in?" Nico suggested, shrugging.

"Yes, scared of the disorder" Piper answered, although she'd felt her throat close when he heard the way in which Nico had talked–it didn't seem like just a bad joke.

"Hold on, I'll go get a broom and a cloth and I'll have this covered, okay?" she said. "By the way, are you feeling alright?" she asked, getting an idea. "I could pass by Cabin 7 or the infirmary and get you some pills or–"

"Piper" Nico cut her softly, lowering his gaze to the black covers, his hands turned into fists. "Don't-don't go" he whispered.

The boy's quiet voice immediately had Piper turning away from the door.

"I'll be back in a minute" she replied gently, testing the ground.

As all answer, Nico denied by moving his head to the sides. For a moment, she wondered whether if he was just saying that because he'd got a fever, but she almost instantly decided that it didn't change the fact that he had said it.

The gesture touched Piper in a way that was hard to explain, hurting her somehow and managing to make the whole scene seem endearing to her.

Was it really necessary to get some painkillers, she asked herself, when the boy's pain was not even a physical one? No, she decided. Not when the one thing he was asking from her was to stay by his side.

She smiled fondly, checking her watch –only to realize it was already 8'clock– and then walked over to the bed.

"Scoot over" she said softly, as she took a seat next to Nico on the mattress. The boy did as asked, leaving a secure distance of a couple inches between them so that they didn't touch each other. Piper rolled her eyes affectionately at him.

"C'mere, you" she said as she circled Nico's shoulders and pulled him to her chest, finding no reluctance from him. "Gods, you're cold!" she then whispered, shrieking slightly.

"I'm always cold" Nico replied bluntly, trying to pull back, but Piper stopped him from doing so by holding him a little more tightly, wordlessly letting him know that however it was, he was still welcomed by her.

"Try to sleep a little" she said after a while, although she knew that Nico was already drifting off on her side. He drowsily nodded before allowing himself to finally close his eyes.

After around fifteen minutes, Piper considered leaving to her own cabin; it was not curfew yet, and she should probably let Jason know that Nico was alright, but she finally decided against it.

Nico had asked for her to stay, and that was exactly what she was going to do, she thought, as she leaned down to press a soft kiss to Nico's forehead just before she closed her own eyes tiredly.

Staying had been well paid, she thought the next morning when Nico woke up next to her, thankfulness and surprise instantly washing over his features as he saw she was still there.

But, she indeed had some trouble the next day when she walked out of a cabin that was not her own, wearing the same clothes that she had been using the day before, something that could not go ignored by her cabin roommates.

Drew appeared to be especially interested in what she had been doing the previous night, but Jason took it upon himself to shut her up before it turned into something serious.

Chiron, on the other side, decided to overlook the whole thing after Piper explained what it had been all about, finally recurring to drag Nico out of his cabin just so that Chiron could see he really was sick.

The centaur had to accept that the son of Hades indeed looked tired and unhealthy, and that Piper's actions had been kind and not fuelled by something else, which concluded in him finally agreeing to have the daughter of Aphrodite nursing the boy for as long as it was needed, with the sole condition that she went back to her cabin at night, term that Piper instantly agreed to.

Chiron then asked him to walk Nico back to Cabin 13 again, and she simply nodded.

While they started walking out from the Big House Piper had the not-so-brilliant-idea to ask herself what Nico was from her.

Well, she thought, Aphrodite had come out from Uranus' blood, and Uranus was Kronos' father, who was Nico's grandfather, which made her… what, exactly? Nico's great-grand-aunt?

She instantly decided to ignore it. Nico was young enough to be her small brother, and she was old enough to pass by the sister he'd lost so many years before, she realized suddenly, and that was really all she needed to know, she thought, as she casually encircled Nico's shoulders, with no reluctance from the boy's side.

Maybe it was hard to imagine someone her age having thoughts about such a thing, but she had been way more inexperienced the first time she had set foot on Camp Half-Blood, and yet she had agreed to become head counselor of her cabin, what was a sole kid compared to a whole cabin filled with teenagers?

Nothing she thought, inwardly thanking Jason for having literally dragged her to that conclusion as she leaned forward and kissed Nico's forehead just before the boy too reached for her waist.

* * *

 **Now tell me, what do you think? By the way, I still don't have the Jasico story. See what I mean? I make plans for finishing something, I write an schedule, I promise I'll follow it and in the end I always end up writting something that was not supposed to be written... e.e**

 **Anyways, read you soon!**


End file.
